Workshop + Talk: Idris Ackamoor & The Pyramids

Idris Ackamoor & The Pyramids: Music is the Healing Force of the Universe Community Workshopbrought to you by Torstraßen Festival, Planet Rock, Music Pool Berlin, BIMM Berlin & Cultural Odyssey

This workshop gives you the chance to learn from some of the last true masters from the heydays of “cosmic” jazz: Led by the restless Idris Ackamoor a bunch of pupils of free jazz legend Cecil Taylor at Ohio’s Antioch College used a student grant to escape the US to travel to europe and then all over Africa as early as 1972, playing and recording with local musicians wherever possible. Back in the US, The Pyramids incorporated their African experience into a music which is as unique as visionary, releasing three albums in private press before disbanding in 1977. Almost thirty years later the musicians regrouped, encouraged by the fact that new audiences and a new generation of especially electronic music producers had enthusiastically embraced their “old” music – The Pyramids have been cited as a major influence and sampled by luminaries like Flying Lotus, Caribou, Gilles Peterson and Bonobo.

About the workshop:
Since the earliest times music has been used to create community, heal, worship, create ceremony and as a vehicle to pass on the knowledge and history of the tribe/community. In those early times the line between performer and audience did not usually exist. The audience WAS the performer and the performer WAS the audience. Enter the 21st Century. There are now concert halls, clubs and art spaces that separate the performer from the audience with members sometimes sitting hundreds of feet from the stage! The atmosphere can be impersonal and non-inclusive. “Music is the Healing Force of the Universe Community Workshop” encourages new creative ways of engaging the public by blurring the distinctions between audience, musician and non-musician, professional performer and nonprofessional, and exploring new and unusual space for performances. The target audience for the workshop will be professional and nonprofessional members from the general community, as well as, “closet” musicians and singers. All musical levels are encouraged to attend with compositional structures and improvisation tailored to fit the individual needs of the workshop participants. The foundation of the workshop will be based on the compositions of instructor, Idris Ackamoor, as well as members of The Pyramids. The two day workshop at NK on May 22 and 23 will culminate in a mutual performance of Idris Ackamoor & The Pyramids and the workshop participants on June 13 at this year’s Torstraßen Festival.